The Key to My Heart

Title: The Key to My Heart: Chapter 27
Author: JadeHeart
Archived: Found on gurabiteshiyon.net. If anyone else would like it, please ask me first!
Fandom: Gravitation
Rating: R
Warnings: angst, bad language
Timeline: After the anime/manga finishes.
Characters: Yuki/Shuichi
Feedback: Feedback is always welcome! If I don’t get feedback, I don’t want to continue!
Summary: Just how far would Yuki go in search of Shuichi?
Author’s Notes: Just to let readers know that Chapter 14 has now been revised and reposted with the original additional information. This is the last chapter of the New York section so there won’t be any further edits for this story. Thank you once again to bakayaro onna and Ashcat for their assistance in reviewing that chapter. Lovely to hear from you again, Ultimecia029 & Reyn; and welcome to all new readers!
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, they belong to the creators of ‘Gravitation’ , nor am I making any profits from this.


The Key to My Heart: Chapter 27


When Yuki returned to the hotel that evening it was 8.00 pm. The afternoon spent with Shuichi had been good – great in fact. Okay, it was fantastic, wonderful, exciting - and down-right fucking depressing!

He had felt nothing but delight in being able to spend so long with the youth; sitting together, talking, drinking coffee, and eventually eating some dinner although they had both actually indulged in seconds of their favourite cakes during the course of the afternoon so weren’t really hungry by the time evening fell.

It had been just like something normal people in a relationship would do. Although he had to admit that it probably wasn’t completely ‘normal’ for them. They had probably talked more together, in a more amicable manner and for longer periods of time, over the last couple of days, than they had in all the years they had been together! Yuki had mentally decided that would be something he would like to try and change for the future. He had found he had enjoyed talking with Shuichi! He didn’t think he would want to do it all the time, but definitely they should try and do it more once they were back home.

It had also been nice to be able to have the opportunity to look at Shuichi fully in the light of day, instead of under the false lighting and shades of night. Shuichi’s skin was darker than he remembered. The youth had always tanned well, not like Yuki’s fair skin that tended to just turn bright-red when he spent too long in the sun. Again, Yuki noticed the difference the change in hair style and colour made to Shuichi’s appearance. It suited him.

As Shuichi shifted and moved, Yuki would occasionally glimpse the scarring on the youth’s neck and this still concerned him. Just how badly had Shuichi been hurt?, he wondered. How far did those scars go across his body? Was he really recovered fully from them? Yuki ached to be able to see, to trace those marks, run his hands over Shuichi’s body to reassure himself that his partner was all right now. It still made his heart ache to know that Shuichi had been through all that pain and suffering alone and frightened, and Yuki hadn’t been there for him. However, for all the signs of Shuichi’s lucky escape, he seemed to have adapted well, and behaved almost as he would normally have done. There appeared to be no real signs of discomfort or lingering pain, so Yuki had to be satisfied with that.

They had talked of many things during the course of their time together, the conversation jumping from topic to topic. Yuki had prompted Shuichi to tell him more of his time living in New York; what he had done, where he had gone, who he had met. Shuichi had been quite enthusiastic about it all, and his second piece of cake frequently suffered the same fate as his first. Yuki thought that more of the cake ended up as crumbs strewn around Shuichi than actually in the boy’s stomach!

However he didn’t try and curb the youth’s enthusiastic rendition of his life and times in the Big Apple. It had just been nice to be able to sit there and listen to his familiar voice bubbling excitedly, and be able to watch his animated face with no impediment. Yuki had been quite content to just watch and smoke, letting Shuichi do most of the talking until the boy had left around 7.30pm to drop into the club briefly before he returned home. To Annette.

Damn, fucking Annette! Always Annette. Her name would come up frequently in Shuichi’s conversation and every time it did, it jarred right through Yuki, grating on his nerves and making him want to throw something at someone. Which probably would have been Shuichi as he was sitting in front of him at the time! Not a good thing to do, and certainly would have been unlikely to have convinced the boy that Yuki was a nice person to know! So Yuki had made certain to keep his hands clear of easily reachable accessories that had the capacity to become flying projectiles. Besides he needed his ashtray. Still, apart from that it had been a good afternoon.

Now, sitting in the bar of the hotel, drink before him, staring at his ice blocks, he was feeling depressed. He was a fucking idiot!! With a groan, he cradled his head in his hands, covering his face. What the hell had he been thinking?! He should have told him, it had been the perfect time to tell Shuichi of them. The boy had opened up the opportunity himself, so why the fuck didn’t he tell him?!

Surely he could have managed to explain it to Shuichi so it wouldn’t have freaked him out straight away. After all, as soon as Shuichi got back to Japan and returned to their apartment, it would have been evident, even to the youth, that he had obviously been living there, and not just on pretense. His stuff was all through Yuki’s apartment, and with only one bed and the boy’s things resting on the table beside it and his clothes in the wardrobe, he would have figured out pretty quickly that they couldn’t have had a very ‘platonic’ living relationship at all. Especially as a tube of lube was always resting on the bedside table for easy access!

So surely Yuki could have explained this to Shuichi and invited him to return to Japan to see for himself. That would have been enough to bring back some memories, wouldn’t it? And once Shuichi remembered that - remembered them - then everything would have been alright again. They could then get on with their lives together, with no more worries. And the first thing he wanted to do with Shuichi was fuck him for so long that he kept the boy in bed for a week!

He picked up his glass and threw the contents down his throat in one go, thumping it back on the bar with just a little less force than would be required to break it, and signaled for another to be placed before him, which was immediately done. He felt his stomach churn, burning pain gnawing at him. He grimaced. Fucking ulcer! The second thing he intended to do to Shuichi when they got back, was to beat him black and blue for giving him another ulcer!

He picked up his drink, swirling the ice cubes around in the amber liquid. Well, he had managed to screw that one up completely today. He hadn’t told Shuichi about them. In fact, he had lied. Completely and utterly lied. About everything. About their relationship, about them living together, about how they met, what they had said. Hell, he had lied about how he admitted he was Shuichi’s lover on national tv! Why the hell had he lied?!

He tossed his second drink back as he had the first, and a third replaced it. Gods, he was a fucking moron! He had screwed this up so much. Fuck Tohma! He may not be here, but Yuki knew that it had been a mistake to try and think like the man! Tohma could take the task of making toast and turn it into a three ring circus, or a soap drama that would enthrall millions. If there was a way to make the simple complicated, Tohma Seguchi could do it! Bad, bad news to try and channel Tohma’s thinking! The only person that had complete control of that thought process was Tohma himself. Everyone else just got completely screwed up by it!

But he hadn’t been able to stop himself. It had all just come out so easily, and it had all been perfectly plausible as well! Shuichi certainly had seemed to believe it, and, hell, even Yuki had started to think it was the truth! What did that tell him when the lies sounded more true than the truth? Was that saying that the truth couldn’t truly be real?

He drank down his third drink, feeling the fuzziness of the alcohol rush through his brain, fogging his thinking, even whilst it continued to ravage his abused stomach. Who know? Who fucking knows? He groaned to himself again. Truth, lies, what was the truth? Is the truth what you have lived, or what should be? Had their whole relationship been nothing more than a fucking lie right from the start? Did Shuichi not really love him and that was why he couldn’t remember Yuki, or anything about their life together? Or had Shuichi hated it that much that deep in his subconscious he didn’t want to ever remember it?

Arghhhh! Yuki screamed inside his head, feeling the pounding in his temples, and the burning in his eyes. His stomach rolled over again in protest.

He got to his feet, a little unsteadily, picking up the refilled drink before him. He looked inside seeing his reflection in the liquid. He was truly pathetic. He let out a short bitter laugh at his own stupidity, then gave a crooked grin to the image of himself, lifting his glass in salute. Here’s to you, fuckwit! And he downed the contents before pushing away from the bar and staggered to his room. Ignoring the fact he was still fully clothed, he let himself fall onto the bed, closing his eyes.

He’s such a fucking moron!

*****************

“Hey, Shu,” a soft voice dragged him from his slumber, with a hand gently rocking his shoulder.

“Hhhmmmph?” he murmured, not feeling like opening his eyes yet.

“I know you’re awake now.”

He cracked an eye open to see Annette sitting on the edge of the bed. One thin strap of her nightgown had slipped alluring from her shoulder. He smiled at her, reaching out to push it back up to its place, deliberately trailing his fingertips lightly over her skin as he did so.

She slapped at his hand, though her delighted smile told him she wasn’t displeased in any way. “We don’t have time for that.” she said, leaning down to give him a quick good morning kiss.

“Hmmm…you sure?” he murmured against her lips, attempting to wrap his arms more tightly about her and drag her down onto the bed.

She wriggled out of his grasp. “I said we don’t have time. Remember you wanted to come to the library with me this morning, so we have to go now. I can’t be late for classes so we have to do it first thing.”

Shuichi stretched and yawned widely, as Annette stood to leave to the room. “I’ll get breakfast, you go and shower first. That might wake you up!” She paused at the door to look back at him over her shoulder with a coy smile. “If you’re really good today, I might give you a surprise tonight!” and with that parting remark she sashayed out of the room.

Shuichi watched her satin clad derriere with delight, and not a little desire. He could feel the smile on his face, and chuckled to himself. Time for a shower. He glanced down at the bedcovers tented at his nether regions, and rolled his eyes at his own state. Better take care of something else whilst he was there.

He swung himself out of bed and made his way to the bathroom. He could hear sounds from the kitchen as Annette organized breakfast for them both and his smile grew broader. Hmm, he thought, as he turned on the taps to the shower. Tonight should be fun for the two of them! Now, that was something worth looking forward to!

Shuichi and Annette crowded around the screen before them. There were very few people in the University’s library at this time in the morning. Annette had quite early classes so it was only the most dedicated students that came in this early, so they had no trouble succoring a computer for their use.

Annett’s fingers flew over the keys. Although Shuichi was familiar enough with computers, she was the far better typist so he left the control to her.

“Let’s look up ‘Bad Luck’ for starters.” she said, typing the words into the search engine and adding ‘Japan’ for good measure. “If you are supposed to be quite popular over there, there’s bound to be something written up.”

They waited only a heartbeat before the listing flashed up.

“Oh…my!” Annette said in wonder, staring at the number of pages it indicated. It numbered in the hundreds of thousands. She threw a quick glance at Shuichi. “Did you know about this?”

He shook his head, looking no less amazed. “Are you sure they’re all to do with the band though? It’s probably picked up a heap of other stuff as well.”

“Let’s try and narrow it down a little then.” she said, modifying the search.

They waited again and the listing popped up. The numbers hadn’t decreased substantially. “Well,” Annette said with a deep breath. “Shall we see what some of it says?”, clicking on the first entry.

They began to work their way through the web pages; some of them created by fans, others by music companies, the official site supported by N-G Productions. There were photos, interview transcripts, the band’s song lyrics, even their biographies. Shuichi read his with curiousity and Annette even printed out a copy for him to take.

“I can hardly believe there’s so much about you.” Annette said, clicking into another site that showed images of one of ‘Bad Luck’s’ concerts with Shuichi standing at the front, microphone in hand. “You really are a big star over there.”

“Didn’t believe me?” Shuichi said with a grin.

Annette shrugged a little. “I didn’t think you were lying, but this is just incredible. All your albums, singles, your concerts – they’re sold out within days, as soon as they hit the stores or open. You are really, really popular! And look at all the fan sites on the net! Thousands of them. You’ve got a huge following.”

“It’s great, isn’t it?” Shuichi said, eyes devouring the words and pictures on the screen as they moved to another. “It must be fantastic to be up on stage, singing my songs. They say I’m the one who writes the lyrics so they’re all my songs, Annette. Mine!”

Annette could see the tell-tale signs of immense excitement building in Shuichi. He flashed a blinding smile at her. “It makes me a little nervous though.”

“Why?”

“How the hell can I live up to all this? I don’t remember how I did it.”

“Don’t worry about it. Something like this you don’t forget, it’s a part of you. You remembered your songs, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Then this would be same. It’s not like you suffer from stage fright. I’ve seen you at the club, you love the attention!”

“Hey, that’s not fair!”

She dimpled at him. “I don’t mind. I love giving you the attention to.” and she let her voice drop to a sultry whisper.

Shuichi’s breath caught in his chest at the flush of desire. He squeezed her knee under the table. “Tonight, remember.” he said, then smiled. “Behave, or I’ll drag you home now.”

She pouted at him. “I’ve got classes.”

“I don’t care.”

She stuck her tongue out at him as they clicked onto another site. It didn’t take them long to come across the stories of he and Yuki.

As soon as Shuichi had returned home the previous evening, he had told Annette of his conversation with Yuki. He had wanted to warn her of the sham story about the two of them and their supposed ‘relationship’. Now he had had time to think about it a little more, he had realized that it could have far reaching consequences and he hadn’t wanted Annette to suddenly be finding out about it unexpectedly. The least he could do was to warn her of it. It wouldn’t be fair other-wise.

She had taken it fairly calmly, asking a few questions that he answered to the best of his ability. It was then that she suggested that they could do some searching on the internet to see just what had been said about Shuichi, which had resulted with them both being here this morning.

“Well, you were right.” Annette said, as they finished reading the tenth article about he and Yuki. “The media over there apparently just loves the two of you and is completely hooked on this story.”

Shuichi looked at her. “Are you okay with it?”

Annette pursed her lips a moment before answering. “Well, I think it’s really very liberal of the Japanese public to accept your ‘relationship’, even if it is a sham. I mean, it is still a pretty big thing to come out in public like that and declare it.” She looked over at Shuichi, “Did Yuki really say that you were lovers on national tv?”

He shrugged, “I don’t remember.” he said a little helplessly, “But according to that, he did!”

“Wow, that must have taken a lot of courage! It’s not something that most guys would be brave enough to announce to the world for all to see, no matter if they are kidding. Especially as he knew full well that it would be taken as the truth.”

“So you don’t mind?”

“Well…” she chewed her bottom lip gently and sat back, frowning. “I can’t say that I exactly agree with the deception you’ve pulled. I don’t think it’s really right to lie about things at all, and certainly not lie about something so serious and personal like your feelings or relationships. I know that you are obviously a very popular and public figure, going by everything that we’ve been reading so far, and everything you do and say would be open to public scrutiny and you probably have very little privacy, but to live a lie? I somehow don’t feel that’s being very ethical.”

“I agree.” Shuichi said. Annette looked over at him, and he reached out to take her hand with a smile. “I agree entirely with what you are saying. I don’t want to live a lie, pretending to be someone or something other than I am. If I go back, I certainly don’t want to keep doing it. I didn’t realize that I was that type of person.”

He frowned, glancing down. “That bothers me you know. That I might have been the sort of person that could have lied so easily and just pretended. I don’t think that makes me a very nice person, and now I can’t help but wonder what other things have I done? What else am I really like?”

Annette squeezed his hand and reached out to place her other on his cheek, making him look at her again. She smiled reassuringly at him. “Stop it. You aren’t a bad person, and this,” she indicated her head towards the computer. “Doesn’t make you one either. I’m sure that the only reason you went along with it was purely because the media started all the rumours in the first place, and probably your manager or whoever they are, told you to do so as well. Sometimes it is just easier to go with the flow, than try and argue and fight against it. From what we’ve been reading, it sounds like even if you and Yuki had tried to deny it, the media wasn’t going to believe it anyway. That’s probably why you both just decided to let it continue. Why should you have given up your friendship because of the stupidity they were writing about? That wouldn’t have been right. I think that perhaps the two of you might have made some mistakes and only fueled the situation which wouldn’t have helped things.”

Shuichi smiled crookedly, “You mean like kissing Yuki on that cooking show, and Yuki declaring we were lovers on the morning tv?”

Annette laughed softly, mischief in her eyes. “You could say that!” She shook her head ruefully. “Honestly, you two really managed to get yourself into such a mess with this! No wonder the both of you are such good friends, you obviously have the same sense of stupid pranks and don’t think about the consequences till afterwards!”

“I think you might be right.”

“Anyway,” Annette continued more seriously. “Since you are so popular, you probably don’t have a lot of say over some things, not if you’re with the N-G Productions group. They sound like they are really big in Japan, so if they had told you to go along with it for the publicity, then you probably just had to put up with it. At least it has sort of been handled tastefully. We haven’t come across any horrid pictures, or tasteless comments and such.”

“Still doesn’t seem right though.”

“See, you don’t think it’s right to lie, so that shows you aren’t a bad person, Shu. Don’t worry about it.”

“But I feel bad for Yuki as well, getting caught up with it all.”

“Oh, I don’t think you have to worry about him.” Annette said, leaning forward to click on another listing. “I mean, everything here seems to indicate that Yuki was fine with it. And you said he seemed okay talking about it with you yesterday, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, he seemed to be.”

“Then as long as it wasn’t actually hurting anyone, look at it as just a little white lie. You are the two people really involved in it and neither of you seemed too bothered by the stories. And I’m sure that any of those closest to you, like your families and close friends, would have known the truth so you weren’t deceiving them. The public is going to make up their own minds and believe what they want to, no matter what you do, whether it’s a lie or the truth.”

“I guess you’re right. But the first thing I’m going to do when we get back to Japan is to announce that it’s all over and have it cleared up. I have no intention of living a lie any longer.”

Annette smiled proudly at him. “I think that would be a good move to make.” She turned back to the screen. “Hey, look! Here’s a list of all the books Yuki’s written!”
She began to scroll down, eyes widening. “Goodness! He has written a lot, and the reviews are just incredible.”

Shuichi leaned in closer over her shoulder to read as well. “Well, he did say he was famous too.”

“Famous? He’s top of the list! Look,” and she pointed to the screen, “Every one of his books has hit the best-seller list immediately upon release, and on top of that, he’s been awarded numerous literary prizes and not just in Japan. His books have even been translated into other languages also. He’s known world-wide!” She scrolled a bit further and jumped to another site, scanning the page. “It’s just amazing!” She looked at Shuichi, eyes alight. “He’s really famous, Shu! An honest-to-goodness celebrity!”

Shuichi grinned back at her and reached up to muss her hair. “So what does that make me? Chopped liver?”

“Hey, cut that out!” she said reaching up and smoothing her hair back down. “You know what I mean. I know that you’re famous too, but it’s still amazing to find out that one of your friends is as well. Though, then again, I suppose it’s not that surprising. You probably only hang out with other famous people, so probably all your friends are.”

“Aw, don’t worry yourself about it. I’ll still love you.” he smirked at her.

“You’d better!” she threatened, reaching up to give his ear a sharp tug. “I’m not going to let your ego get too inflated!” Shuichi laughed with her.

She glanced down at her watch and hurriedly stood. “I’ve got to go, or I’m going to be so late!” She placed a quick peck on Shuichi’s cheek. “Turn it off when you’re done.”

“Don’t forget about lunch!” he quickly reminded her.

“I won’t!” she promised as she gathered up her bag. “I’ll meet you out front.”

“Okay.”

“See you!” and with a wave she rushed off, leaving Shuichi to browse a little more.

He stared at the photos of himself and the other members of ‘Bad Luck’, all dressed in their stage clothes, and he couldn’t help but think –

I look pretty damn cool!